Abstract. The article discusses the role of the Iravan Teachers’ Seminary in the history of Azerbaijan’s education. The city of Iravan has historically been one of the great centers of science, education, and culture where Azerbaijanis live. Iravan Khanate was ruled by Azerbaijanis from 1390 to 1828. Czarist Russia, which occupied Azerbaijan, abolished the khanate and created an Armenian province here, transferred 40,000 Armenians from Iran and 84,600 Armenians from the Ottoman Empire, and settled them in these lands. Despite this, the city of Iravan has always preserved its national color. The article discusses the role of the Iravan Teachers’ Seminary, which was organized in 1881, in the training of Azerbaijani teachers. The seminary has provided important services in preserving the fullness and vitality of the literary-social, scientific-cultural life in the Iravan district, dominated by Azerbaijanis, with its highly qualified national teachers with a modern worldview and way of thinking, which it has prepared for nearly 40 years, and has written memorable pages in the history of Azerbaijan’s pedagogical thought. Graduates of the seminary actively participated in the opening of secular schools in the regions where Azerbaijanis live, involved school-age children in education, and made great sacrifices in the spread of education in Iravan, Nakhchivan, and other regions of Azerbaijan.
Keywords: Azerbaijan, Iravan Khanate, Iravan Teachers’ Seminary, national textbook, national education movement, elementary school.
